Venezuelan choir brings museum audience to its feet with South American program

Opus 3 ArtistsSchola Cantorum de Venezuela, a 40-member vocal ensemble, appeared at the Cleveland Museum of Art Friday, Oct. 28 with a diverse, lively program of serious and popular works from South America and Cuba.

With their serious name, the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela sound like specialists in madrigals or medieval chant. In fact, they're authorities on fun.

In an alluring performance Friday at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the latest offering on the Viva! & Gala Performing Arts series, the choir hooked a small but engaged audience on the rhythms and spirit of South America and even brought a few listeners to their feet.

They also proved their mettle. The choral equivalent of a Ferrari, the Grammy Award-nominated ensemble displayed tremendous discipline, performing from memory and responding with exceptional agility to its director, Maria Guinand, and conductor Ana Maria Raga.

Dressed first in pastel robes and later in black suits and colorful dresses, the 40-member group presented a program called "Aqua and Fiesta." Against a slew of upbeat, high-energy dances from Venezuela and elsewhere was juxtaposed a set of vivid, often richly emotional concert works inspired by water.

Which part of the first half was most effective is truly a toss-up. Each work in "Aqua" revealed some new talent, each more impressive than the last, and in every case, the group was a model of professionalism, textural clarity and dynamic control.

A few selections merit special mention. Golijov's "Coral del Arrecife," for instance, saw the ensemble split in two, negotiating dense harmonies and enunciating a poem by Pablo Neruda at off-set speeds, to beautifully disorienting effect.

In Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst," by contrast, the group evoked the never-silent world of the rainforest using bells and a palette of haunting vocal effects, while in "Yemaya," an excerpt from an oratorio by Gonzalo Grau, the singers worked themselves into a near frenzy, pleading with ever greater intensity for the goddess of the seas to "take away the bad."

Where "Aqua" was mostly serious, "Fiesta," as its name implies, had a party atmosphere. Instead of profound works of art, the second half featured lively, fast-paced folk dances from Venezuela as well as Cuba, Brazil and Argentina. Several singers also did double or triple duty on flute, percussion instruments and the Cuatro, a Venezuelan guitar.

The rhythmic and melodic profiles of each entry were unique, distinct combinations of spices to be savored, and together formed a broad cross-section of musical life south of the U.S.

"Cerezo Rosa," a Cuban cha-cha-cha, was openly, abundantly melodic and led the singers to do a little frolicking of their own. Later, a pair of swift, syncopated numbers called "Toy Contento" ("I am Happy") and "El Menciona'o" ("The Named One") tested the Schola artists as both singers and dancers. Both were also based on the joropo, Venezuela's waltz-like national dance.

But the work that got people on and off stage singing and dancing was "Nuestras Navidades," the finale, a supercharged Christmas song reveling in the spirit of the season. Clearly, for the Schola and Venezuelans in general, it's always time to celebrate.